About 20 years ago, one of us (Madeline), was involved in an automobile accident and was confined to a wheel chair for two weeks. There was no problem as long as there was someone to push me. However, at the clinic one day I had to go to the restroom at the lunch hour. There was no one to push me and it was then I found how difficult it is to move that chair by pulling on the wheel attached thereto for that purpose. I have what is known as a “frozen shoulder” meaning there are calcium deposits at the joint which makes it very painful to move the arm. I also had and still have arthritis in my hands. Though they are only slightly deformed they are very painful and I had to stop playing piano. There was no way I could move that chair more than a few inches at the time. I finally made it to the restroom where some kindly person opened the door. I had to stay there until lunch hour was over and patients and attendants had returned as I could not open the door and keep it open while I pulled on that wheel and moved a few inches at the time.
I thought then “why doesn't someone invent a wheel chair that can be moved by a lever?” When I recovered, I forgot about it but I did remember to always ask a person in a wheelchair if they wanted to be pushed.
Two years ago, I was in a rehab where I was sent for therapy after a month in the hospital with  chronic pain. After therapy, I had to get back to my room on a wheelchair. I am now twenty years older, chronic pain in shoulders, arms, back, and hands and the wheelchairs are just the same old wheelchairs. There was no way I could move the chair with the small grip wheel there for that purpose. I did what the other patients did: I took hold of the banister with both hands and pulled. I moved forward about twelve inches. I spent the rest of my six weeks at rehab thinking of how I would improve wheelchairs. I came up with several versions. When I got home I had to have round the clock care for five months and when I got better I forgot about the wheelchair.
I live in a retirement home. We have a resident who is in her early fifties. At dinner one evening, she was holding her dinner plate in her lap, pulling on that little grip wheel, moving inches at the time, on her way to her apartment. After dinner I drew some sketches of the ideas I had for easy to propel wheelchairs. Then my grandson devised some clever mechanisms and helped me build my prototype. We submit herewith a patent application for a wheelchair engaged by a cam and propelled by a lever.
A typical manually operated wheelchair has hand operated push rims fixed on wheelchair drive wheels. A user grips the push rims and continually pushes and release the push rims for movement of the wheelchair. Such gripping and pushing motions are difficult and painful for some users. Additionally, such wheelchairs are difficult to maneuver.
Thus, there has been a need to overcome problems associated with wheelchairs operated by push rims. Alternatives to gripping and pushing the rims are known in the art. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,577,748 to Dombrowski et al. discloses a wheelchair having a lever arm that includes a pad having a contact  surface and a drum attached to a drive wheel having a contact surface. The lever arm is movable between first and second lateral positions such that the contact surface of the drum and arm are engaged. While the contact is maintained, the arm is rotated in a first direction to cause the wheelchair to advance. At the bottom of the first stroke the user releases the inward force on the arm causing the arm to move back to the second position. The arm is rotated in a second direction for a backward movement.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,082 to Watwood et al. describes another alternative drive for a wheelchair including a lever having a handle and a rotating pawl mounted on the lever in a position to contact an upper surface of a tire of each wheel. A surface of the pawl includes teeth that grip the wheel and transfer rotational force to the wheel when the user pusher forward on the lever. After a stroke in one direction, a user pulls back the lever towards his body and the pawl releases the tire such that the wheelchair's momentum carries the wheelchair along.
A disadvantage of wheelchairs in the prior art is that they tend to include a large number of components making them difficult to assemble. Other disadvantages of prior art wheelchairs is that they are cumbersome and difficult to transport.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved drive for a wheelchair.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a new and improved wheel chair drive.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a wheelchair drive having a small number of components. 